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Venus with the naked eye in Daylight

Thanks to some excellent advice from Neville Young, in his new book Astronomy within Reach, we can all amaze and astound our friends by helping them to see the planet Venus with the naked eye, in full daylight. Regular readers will have already seen photographs showing that such a thing is possible, and should have worked out that Venus is bright enough to show up well against the blue daytime sky. The problem is that the human eye has an autofocus feature which is really hard to override, and if there is nothing clear to focus on then it defaults to a distance of only a few meters. Even if you happen to be looking at the exact spot in the sky, your eye cannot resolve the tiny white pinprick of Venus when it’s so far out of focus, and so it remains invisible.

Fortunately, Venus often passes near the Moon, and if you know when these conjunctions will occur, you can use the moon to get focus, and then let your gaze drift a degree or two in the right direction to spot Venus as clear as, well, daylight! There are a few such times coming up for the rest of 2012: 13 and 14 August, 12 September, 12 October and 11 November. For more details on when and where to look, and what makes those particular dates better than other conjunctions, visit Neville’s webpage at http://www.starwaders.com.

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Allen is an amateur astronomer, an IT professional, a podcaster, a father of five beautiful kids and a barely competent chess player.
He is also the director of the Astrophotography Section of the Astronomical Society of South Africa, where he coordinates and promotes the activities of people who are far better photographers than him.

Thank you! There aren’t a lot of places that sell decent telescopes in Southern Africa. The ones that comes to mind are http://www.telescopeshop.co.za, http://www.eridanusoptics.co.za, http://www.foton.co.za and shop.technopro.co.za
Camera and Department stores sometimes sell them as well, but be careful not to buy anything that makes a big deal about how many x magnification it has – those are toys and will disappoint. There are brands like Bushnell, Tasco and K-Way which… honestly I’m not sure. I’ve never used one, and people generally say not to buy them. But they are real telescopes, and if they are all you can find in your area, and you can afford them, then I suppose it’s better than nothing. But if you have the option, I would suggest rather buy something from Orion, Sky Watcher, Celestron or Meade. There are other brands that are much better (and much much more expensive!), but if you know about those, then you don’t need my advice!
Most important things to remember: Bigger is better (and I’m talking the diameter of the tube, not the length), and you need a decent mount for the telescope, otherwise it will wobble and shake so much that you can’t see anything.